Conclusion:

Last Salute: The Surveillant 
(February, 1970, Week Nine, Last Day at Fort Bragg

Part Eight

The last day at Fort Bragg, Smiley was by me, we got on the bus together to go to the airport, and for once, they (the Drill Sergeants) were respectable gentlemen whom expected to see better days, now that we were going, I suppose, and it wouldn’t do any good to humiliate us now, so they actually held a smile and the captain was nearby shaking hands, not my hand, although he looked my way, I gave have him a half salute, I had come to learn, one salutes the uniform, not necessarily the man. He was all right in a way although he forced me to change, or face the consequences, which would ultimately change me through the Army anyhow; simply another form of control, like a   Surveillant (the overlord, overseer or observer).  I was simply shaking my head loose trying to get on the bus as quick as possible, and hoping there would be no more ‘lights out,’ when I got to Redstone, my next duty station outside of Huntsville, Alabama.

       “I want you to write me Siluk,” said smiley, as we rode to the airport, he was headed to Texas, and I to Alabama.  “Sure,” I said, and we would write.  Matter of fact, we’d write up to a few weeks prior to me leaving Augsburg, Germany, heading to Vietnam (about a year from that vantage point).  He would end up in the Vietnam War, before me.  Write me letters, and then all of a sudden stop.  He told me many times, “Don’t come over here.”  I told him I wanted to, simply because it was too easy in Augsburg, and I wanted more excitement. He told me to get serious.  That is what his last letter would say, and then he left an ending sentence that said, “Got to get going to the bush in a few minutes, remember what I say old friend…!”

       I had saved him from a fight once.  He was heading over to meet me at the EM club, and when he didn’t show up, I got worried, and left the bar, heading across the field, found he was cornered by three recruits, when he saw me he yelled “Siluk!” and I came, and said, “Oh we have some trouble cooking up here, three against one, now this is more like it, two against three, good odds…!” and the three ran the other way, and Smiley yelled at them, “Chickens!”  He never forgot that, and I guess I didn’t either.

       Anyhow, here we were on the bus, and he gives me his address in Texas.  And to be honest, I never looked out the window to see who was looking or waving or whatever was going on out there, and neither did he.

       (Behind me were three soldiers that would go to Redstone, one an Indian, I didn’t know him yet, he was from Sergeant Wolf’s platoon, but in time I would get to know him, I think Apache.  We would become friends at Redstone, and we’d get drunk together downtown in Huntsville, and get a bit rough in a few bars.  Then I’d not see him for awhile, and meet him again in Vietnam, he had become a worse in Nam, than in Redstone, drunk all the time, or high, whatever he could get. I wasn’t much better I suppose)

       But on to the airport the bus went, I did a bit of daydreaming on the way, I got thinking about no more brushing the crevices in the tile in the latrine, in the barrack with a toothbrush to appease our overseers, or watching men run around holding their private parts in their hands because they called their riffle a gun, which the drill sergeants didn’t like, as well as this was their punishment, I swore, if they  would have asked me to do that, there would have been a little war right there.  Anyhow, it didn’t materialize, and I was hoping there would be no more KP, once I got to Redstone, I was hoping, as I said, but that was just a daydream of course, there was KP to be given out, but this time I was not so foolish, I started going to church on Sundays, so I never got it on those days.

The Airport
 

At the airport Smiley and I said our goodbyes, and I joined the three other guys going to Huntsville, Alabama, the Indian was one of them; I had seen him on the bus, and perhaps at the beer hall a few times, but now, sitting at the bar we became better friends; and I figured why not, we’d be together for three months, unless we got assigned to different barracks. These would be different barracks indeed, round shaped, like I would have in Vietnam, used there as an Orderly Room, here as a barracks, with a metal or tin kind of roof  that extended all around the hut, or barracks. And yes, my Native American friend would be there.

       As we drank, I (as usual) became quiet, and somber somewhat not in a sad way rather in a dull dreamy way, again I got thinking about my one night in Fayetteville, Private Whitey in our barracks, and for some reason, Fat Boy.

       I had escaped one night out of the military base at Fort Bragg, and snuck down to a night club in Fayetteville, got acquainted with the waitress, and then Sergeant Wolf’s assistant came in.  I went to the bathroom, and when I came out he was sitting several seats away from my glass of beer, I had to leave it there, and get on out of the club, and it was close.  Sandy, the waitress came up to me at the doorway, I couldn’t turn around, lest he see me and report me, and she said, “Come back sometime, I like the quite ones!”  She was in her early 30s, very ripe for the pickings.

       And there was Whitey; he was a haggard white boy from some eastern city.  One night we had to almost hogtie him, throw him under a shower and gave him a bar of soup and forced him to wash himself, lest we do it for him (two weeks without a shower was too much for all of  us in the barracks).  He bellyached like a squealing pig, but he did what he had to do.  He was tallish, white hair for his young age, thin effeminate person, and a most tiring figure in the barracks, he had a red nose, and sniffed all the time as if he was suffering from a permanent severe cold. I was glad he was not headed to Redstone Arsenal with us.

       And Fat boy, who was no longer fat. The Sergeants all like him, he lost forty pounds, no longer did he have them fat knuckles, and you could actually see his neck, it was thick muscle now. And he was no longer clumsy. They made him do the monkey bars several times before he went to eat in the mess hall, prior to breakfast, lunch and dinner, and run an extra lap here and there.  Remarkable I thought, a man willing to bow to his oppressors.
      
       At the airport it was refreshing to see the pretty smiling faces of the females as I left the bar, walked about, ready to board the plane, faces of so many females, how many girls I couldn’t count, hundreds, all peering obligingly.

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